Has anyone looked at the caustic malfeasance of the academic community? Academics fund their useless courses, majors and careers on the backs of student debt. This theft is the greatest criminal travesty ever perpetrated on the younger generation. Academics, en mass, should be ashamed of their chosen "profession" and should be excoriated for their greed.

“Academics fund their useless courses, majors and careers on the backs of student debt. This theft is the greatest criminal travesty ever perpetrated on the younger generation.” –Jaguar6cy

Which courses are, in your estimation, useless? I have studied Ancient Greek to Tensor Calculus, sketching to drafting, creative writing to encryption, and they *all* were worthwhile. Indeed, I heartily recommend a broadly-based Liberal education as a foundation for *anyone* who has aspirations of being more than just an employee; of being more than just a member of some cheering crowd.

Never forget that even finely honed tools, while held in high esteem by those who wield them, are nonetheless tools that are wielded by somebody *else*.

No man should make himself but a tool in the service of another, and no nation can remain a democracy whose people have no aspirations beyond that of a steady job.

If the academic community were ethical, and supplying a valuable service, why are so many college "graduates" waiting on tables or collecting unemployment, while carrying an average personal debt load of $25,000+? In any other arena that would be called fraud and the financial abuse of a an entire generation.

Across the EU 27 private and public expenditure on education amounts to 6.2% of GDP, globally health expenditure is around 10%. If you're suggesting we're getting "ripped off" in education (and in some places in the world there is no doubt about this), we similarly getting ripped off in health? Or what about Banking? This accounts for over 12% of UK GDP. Which is directly responsible for the creating additional value?

If we're going to make vague and subjective accusations at industries or economic sectors then at least point them in the appropriate direction.

No. Colleges and universities are not selling jobs; they are selling skill sets. And anyone who gets a college education on the assumption that they will automatically be employed because of it has failed to understand what they bought. The skills that people acquire in college are, among other things, an *investment* that provides an income stream for its owner when applied. And just like any other investment, the value of those skill varies according to the current market conditions.

And the job market is not homogeneous: it varies by skill, by competency, by experience and is affected by the overall economy. This article, for example, is all about how the job market for youth has crashed. This says nothing about the long-term value of the skills that those people acquired, any more than the 2009 crash defined the value of Caterpillar Inc or of JP Morgan. The housing market too crashed and the value of people’s houses plummeted, but the house that they acquired didn’t intrinsically lose value *as a house*; it lost value as an *investment*. And note that the values of those houses are once again appreciating, in line with the notion that a house is a solid long-term investment.

In sum, while the market value of many college educations has radically fallen, especially for youth, the long-term value of those educations hasn’t really changed very much. Further, if you want to blame somebody for this current malaise, you’d be closer to the mark if you railed against your political class because most of the problems are structural, and the political class created them.

Have you heard about anything banks & government have done in the past decade? Academics have one job: Share knowledge. You can't fault them on doing that job. If anything, we need MORE scientists, MORE engineers, MORE academics to counter the brain-drain when the ones we have now all go back to China & India. What we need LESS of are finance workers and bureaucrats.

Waiting tables returns a higher income than most entry level professions. The caveat is waiting tables is for the young and attractive. The opportunity is short. Yet for women who expect to marry, have children, and opt out of professional employment the table waiting option is a good choice.

How can you blame colleges for providing education but not providing jobs? If you not sure what work job you are going to do after college, should you not do a bit of research before incurring such debt?

A lot of it has to do with peoples ignorance.

That being said, I also blame governments for not educating its population adequately at school to work these thing out before, as apposed to once they have graduated and are working tables.

Strangely enough, unemployment is high among those with little employability skills. A recent survey of HR managers discovered the following:
'Forty-nine percent of them stated that less than half of new employees “exhibit professionalism in their first year.” More than half (53 percent) have noticed “a sense of entitlement” rising among younger workers; almost 45 percent have seen a “worsening of the work ethic,” including “too casual of an attitude toward work” and “not understanding what hard work is.”
[...]
The authors of the study explained that the younger generation “believes that it is possible to multi-task effectively” and that using social media, for example, is an efficient way to communicate. In interviews, the applicants check their phones for texts and calls, dress inappropriately and overrate their talents.
“The sad fact is some of these persons probably do not understand what is wrong with this,” the authors note.'http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-08/what-do-u-s-college-graduates-l...

So what you're saying is that we should behave and strategize exactly like the people of the 20th century even though the market (and society itself) is changing more radically, much faster than at any time during that century? THAT is the disconnect between the young generation and the boomers; the boomers still think in terms of *linear* change, when our society is obviously undergoing the exponential variety. The young understand that the rules need to change, and they will need to change again after with a quicker cycling time.

Also note that a higher retirement age (and the prospect of one) has a direct impact on youth employment: it decreases how fast other workers get promoted to the positions left behind by retirees, all the way down to the entry-job positions for young workers. This is a particularly salient issue to be broached in OECD countries.

Take a generation of kids who have grown up in unprecedented affluence, add parental permissiveness, a welfare state that removes the necessity of work to survive, an education system that does not educate, and a minimum wage that prices them out of the market with their meager skills, and we have a recipe for some serious economic turmoil for years to come.

... because the economy should be restarted. Firstly, do we need all that bureaucracy? Secondly, most of the sectors in the economy in general are exhausted and not not effective. Moreover they do not provide added value to the products. Thirdly, the economy should be focused at innovations, science and new technologies. And the new industries will come... definitely will generate more jobs for the youngsters.

General unemployment problem in the world will only grow particular technology takes many steps forward, no need to go further and see that the level of unemployment among young Sparky reaches 50% and it is very dangerous to the state, I think the technology and the introduction dumped a lot of work into the street looking for work,www.doronamit.co.ul

I discovered from my 7,9 and 13 year old that their approach to electronics is to press all the buttons and remember which button does what. I and my generation want to know why when I press a button it does what it does. Hence I conclude the present generation do not have the problem solving skills which is obvious in the people I employ. That and the fact that if they don't work out it is so difficult to sack them that you don't bother.....

(3)If one's country does not provide opportunities to upward mobility, then become an
immigrant to Australia, Canada, U.S., Singapore, etc.
We don't choose where to be born. We can choose where to live.

As well as whether to breed and how many, which greatly determines one's economic trajectory, especially for females who worldwide still are paid less than males for the same work, even with an advanced education and skill set.

The simple fact is that, since the 1970s, the technology/information economy steadily has been replacing human manual labor. The stark reality is that this trajectory actually began with the first machines: the fulcrum and the wheel. There are currently 7 billion humans but not 7 billion jobs; it will only grow more lopsided in the next 2 decades, as the global population increases to 9 billion while jobs continue to decline.

As someone in my late 20's I've been fortunate just about dodged the youth unemployment bullet, but I can see personally a two very simple reasons as to why it has become such a big issue;

Companies are scaling back hiring, (or indeed laying off employees) and becoming a lot less willing to take a chance on less experienced youth (thus creating that cycle of no experience - no job - no job - no experience ...)

Older employees who have watched pensions disappear with collapses in stock prices etc. are staying on longer, so there is less natural attrition and placements becoming available.

I see more than a few comments here about 'the youth of today' being lazy, wasting their time on frivolous pursuits etc. not like when they were young - I would guess nearly every single generation since time began I think believes this, it's silly, and not at all a new phenomenon, an Ancient Egyptian tomb famously says;

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self control."

The man who complained in his tomb was probably correct; civilizations collapse and Ancient Egypt collapsed no less than five times in its 2300 year history prior to the Greek conquest. His lament is among the typical sign society is headed down hill; no one is complaining the youth of China are idle.

My statement was about idleness; when ever there is great societal change, there will be some disconnect between the young and old. So, the issue in China today is over world view, not work ethic. The problem of youth in the West is one of work ethic; don't get me wrong there has not been a general additude of hard work in the West since before 1914.

The ancients intellect was so far superior to present that USA has a regular ancient aliens channel. The premise is that alien invaders brought knowledge and intellect to the primitives. No, Joe, you are the primitive.

I am going to be honest; a lot of young people in West are simply lazy; even lazier than their parents. Yes; work rules are a problem, but a lack of skill is an even bigger problem. With the exception of Germany, must Western youth go to university and come out with degrees that may (I emphasis may) have expanded their mental facilities, but not their productive ability. Due to the poor quality of government ran education and a deeply engrained belief in determinism (innate genetic based outcomes), most Western youth study humanities because they lack (having never been effectively taught) the math and science skills for a hard science degree.
Most youth in the West will react incredulously if you mention that they have wasted their time pursing a degree in the humanities, but when they leave school and begin looking for work they soon find out the truth. I told one kid who said he was majoring in psychology that he was majoring in unemployment. I rarely sit in on entry-level hiring, but all the unqualified candidates say the same thing; “I went to college; I have a bachelors (or masters) degree”. The problem they don’t see is that no one needs communications, English, psychology, or history majors; at least they need very few of them. What are needed are more engineers, scientist, doctors, and accountants; I would hire a mechanic, plumber, or welder before I would hire a sociologist. Yet, they believe because they have earned a “degree” they are entitled to high paying job; most of their degrees have only prepared them to work jobs as retail clerks.
It reminds me of a comment by Machiavelli; “Cato was aware of this when the philosophers, Diogenes and Carneades, were sent ambassadors to the senate by the Athenians; for, perceiving with what earnest admiration the Roman youth began to follow them, and knowing the evils that might result to his country from this specious idleness, he enacted that no philosopher should be allowed to enter Rome.” It seemed a bit extreme at the time, but now I see the wisdom of Cato’s actions.

I agree most of the humanities degrees are of little value. But let's not place all of the blame on the young graduates. Its not the graduates who built the Universities, or designed the University course offerings.

The fact is, the University system in America perpetuates this problem - and they do it because it is profitable for them. They get the same tuition whether they offer a class in Sub-Saharan Literature or Statistics.

Young college entrants - typically around 18 years old - simply aren't aware, at that age, of the harsh real-world employment situation. And it appears no one is properly guiding them, other than University guidance counselors, who are more than happy to suggest a degree in a myriad of humanities related subjects....

Most University tution is subsidized in some way by the Federal government. As the main tuition payer, The Federal government is in a position to fix this problem. Yet, nothing is being done about it. And, as far as I know, there aren't many Senators or Congressmen which can be considered "Youth".

The reality is, through no fault of recent grads, the workforce - specifically, hiring practises - have changed.

I graduated about 20 years ago with an undergrad degree in French. With no relevant expereince, and a degree in French, I got a job as a Commercial Real-Estate Appraiser. I was hired because, although I had no relevant experience or education, the employer could see I was adept enough to figure out the job.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY someone with a degree in French, and no relevant experience, would be able to get the same job in today's job market. Employers no longer hire based on general ability - they hire strictly on related experience and education.

A foreign language major is not a bad way to go, but it might be better as a minor. However, I have pointed out that even when I warn young people that their degree choice is frivolous they mainly react defensively; they don’t want to hear it. Some have suggested charging humanities major more than those studying STEMs in state universities, but that idea has faced stiff opposition wherever it has been proposed.

Yet in Spain we're absolutely unable to acknowledge how rigid and out of date our labour market and laws are. Totally disconnected from the times we're living in.
Actually, it's paradoxical that the so-called "progressive" forces are the most conservative and reactionary of all. In Spain this is the case with the trade unions (which live off government subsidies, and not on member fees) and the biggest socialist party. They in fact inherit the Franco framework for labour. But that was 40 years ago. Wake up and adapt

Youth unemployment in Germany fell only recently and quiet dramatically. The reasons for that are mainly demografic. The mismatch in between skills acquired and skills wanted in employes is a reality, also in Germany and its not the reason for the dramatic drop of it there.

Perhaps we could add some contraception to the drinking water in developing countries, and maybe we could start WW111 starting with the breaking up of the EU ... that should solve this intractable problem ?

Hi,
The Economist explains. Why is youth unemployment so high? Don’t talk about Hitler. As a prelude to the Second World War the national socialists in Germany embodied on a project to mobilize the unemployed. Not suggesting one should do just the same, but if the government mobilizes such to repair road, help in care homes, public services they would do a lot of good.

Youth unemployment is high because kids lack the necessary work skills.
_________________________

For young males,the single greatest chunk of their free time is electronic gaming.
And they are very good at gaming.
Time is limited.
And if you waste 6 hours a day gaming, you lose the opportunity cost to learn other useful skills.
Such as programing, playing the saxophone, Mandarin, statistics, carpentry, UAV flight, movie making, scuba diving, or ballroom dancing.
There is a cost to wasting time.
And no one should be a still zombie hypnotized to a video screen.
Now add other time wasters as the internet, Youtube, txting, and Social Media.

Kids today think they can do manual labor with one hand, while the other holds the mobile phone.

Perhaps video gaming should be the reward at the end of the day for a job well done.
And not the consuming day long constant activity.
___________________________

Imagine if instead of gaming, a young adult devoted that 6 hours a day towards gaining work skills, career exploration and gaining unique expertise based on passion.

As an alternative, I would propose once a month, a youth shadows a professional, factory worker, or craftsman.
Experiences the day from dawn to dusk--let say at a bakery.
And writes a two page journal article on the experience.
Even a lowly factory worker has knowledge to impart and important skills.
And sometimes the lesson to the student is:
I can never be happy in that kind of work
--and that is a valuable life lesson and a memory that will remain seared for a lifetime.

And importantly students learn timeliness, respect, how to ask questions, critical safety, importance of work, how economics functions, business practices, how to use tools, unique work place vocabulary, a whole new dimension of metaphors, work place values, and even how to write.

And this is all in one day at a lowly factory job. Or a gardening job pulling weeds.
__________________________

A minute wasted is never regained.
Unfortunately children waste time, seek constant entertainment, combat the major threat of boredom, and have a shrinking attention span.

"Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may;
Old Time is still a-flying.
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying."

How you spend the free hours of the day reflect your values.
Look the real life schedule of a young person today.
The values of kids today are self-entertainment, narcissicism and drug abuse.
And they do not have the attention span, initiative, and resiliency of past generations.
________________________
Yes, employers are wary for good reason.

Dear "Connect the Dots":
As a person aged 22 (23 in 3 days, dear Zeus, where does the time go?) and on the verge of unemployment after the completion of my master's degree, I must say that your assessment of today's unemployed youth is erroneous in more ways than one.
For one thing, your non-cited statistics regarding video games suggest that video games somehow sap all the information that the youth accrue over the course of years of schooling. This is not so. Just as there is no link between video games and gun violence, there is no link to suggest that video games numb the mind. In fact, some studies suggest that teens [those not in the bracket of 18-24, unemployed, college educated, etc.] only spend less than 20% of their time on video games. Don't forget, of course, that the vast majority of youths in underdeveloped nations don't play video games. At all.

But, of course, the issue isn't teens, it is those of us who find ourselves out of work when we have a degree. I can assure you, video games are not why we are un- or underemployed.
As the article above states, youth have the highest turnover rate in jobs, mostly because we are the first to be let go should a company decide that there should be cutbacks.
Coupled with that is that fact that those of us who do more liberal arts degrees find ourselves with few to no options upon graduation. So, either it's become an academic, or perish.

Besides, the aim for most qualified graduates isn't manual labor at all: it's skilled labor, that which requires the use of that which we honed for four years (or more). That's the problem, especially in the US: so many of us are underemployed and we make so little that it's hard to ever really launch into a career.

Not to be ad hominem, but you sound rather like someone who yearns for the "good old days," when your generation was proud/hard-working/assiduous/etc. This reflective bias is largely a lie, created by the fondness of your own memories as a blanket under which you can hide when you lambaste the current generation for being "lazy." There were always distractions for children and nothing was ever perfect. Nothing ever has been.

The job market, especially in developed nations, isn't one of manual labor, not anymore. The jobs that require attentive thinking and critical analysis are the ones that we all want but are only reserved for a select few, leaving the rest of us young people to find something not quite suited to our expertise. It's natural. It happens. We adapt and hope that things will get better, all the while working whatever job will pay us.

Don't blame the generation. After all, we were raised by yours, so what does that say about the older generation's parenting skills?

there a real wake of possibilities to whats creating this unemployment.

I left suggestion is the hindsight being distilled in to the coming genrations minds. Simple in terms of sustainability we can no long keep the world employed, we are almost consuming to planets - we are foreseeing perhaps what will dictate our next economic model, and this is a more balance lifestyle with creative, leisure, family time and new endeavours. Consumerism and efficiency will need vast adjustment with a domino effect from richer nations moving to the third world blending with the already tribal cultures.

Or who know someone may invent a solution so wil can all be employed 9-5 . 7 days a week & even possibilities of some overtime .

You my young friend are a good example of a generation that assumes that is entitled to everything. I bet you think you deserve a 80k job just because you have a masters in a rather useless degree.

I'm sure you want that money to travel to exotic countries every year, just because you want to post "cool" pics on your facebook. Probably you want a hybrid vehicle as well, because you are environmentally conscious. Oh and I almost forget, you need money because you do need new "iwhatever" gadgets every couple of years. Last but not least your daily "coffee-mocka-lathe" is something you can't live without right?

Sorry to break your bubble slacker but being born in the 90's doesn't entitle you to anything.

"Coupled with that is that fact that those of us who do more liberal arts degrees find ourselves with few to no options upon graduation. So, either it's become an academic, or perish."

One of the biggest frauds in America (and likely Europe) is the idea that one college degree is as good as another. The fraud is perpetuated by the Universities themselves, who offer degrees in subjects where there are simply no jobs.

Historically - say, 30+ years ago - any college degree sufficed to get a white-collar job, as college grads were less abundant, and jobs required fewer intense skills. If you were smart enough to get a degree, you were smart enough to figure out how to do white collar work.

Not so anymore. Employers, for better or worse, demand applicants with very specific skills, experience, and/or education.

Unfortunately, nobody is telling 18 year-old college entrants that a degree in Women's studies, Anthropology, or Sub-Saharan History is going to lead to unemployment. They need to be told the hard truth - and Universities need to be slapped down for failing to do so.

You are being too hard on him. He is right - many of the problems the youth unemployed face are attributable to flaws created by their parent's generation.

Teenagers have always been a wiley bunch - this is nothing new, and its not specific to spoiled rich kids in the rich world. Every tribal Yanonami village has problems with derelict teenagers. Its a genetic, physical thing. Been the case since the dawn of humanity. Wasted time on video games is just a symptom.

We (the older generations) failed the youth by encouraging them to go to University and get degrees in worthless subjects.

We should have:

1) Encouraged them to get more productive degrees (and explained to them why it would be beneficial to do so).

2) Stopped allowing Universities to siphon Federal tax dollars via useless degrees in obscure liberal arts subjects, with no positive benefit either to society or to the graduate - the only benefit, enriched Universities...

3) Employers could stand to be a little more helpful by being a little less obtuse - they've turned to only hiring people with the exact skills/education for specific jobs, when, in fact, someone with enough intelligence could figure out the job in week's time....(and its not just the youth that suffer from this - newly unemployed middle-age workers get hit hard by this trend as well).

"You are being too hard on him. He is right - many of the problems the youth unemployed face are attributable to flaws created by their parent's generation."
_______________________
Every minute we make a decision on how we spend our limited precious time.
If youth are spending 6 hours a day gaming, txting or updating Social Media,
THEN they are not learning, studying, and problem solving.
_______________________
Yes, how you spend your hours, reflects your values and ultimately your achievement.
That is our OWN decision and ultimately our responsibility.
We cannot blame our parents for how we spend our day gaming and entertaining ourselves.
______________________
And we pay the price for failing to learn and accomplish
and then criticize those who do work hard and earn merit.
Hard work never killed anyone,
but today's youngsters do not want to risk it.

In the case of 22 year-olds that sit around the house playing video games, munching on Doritoes, and smoking weed - you are correct.

But its simply out of touch with reality to suggest that the MAJORITY of youth fit into this category.

To be honest, from the young workers I have seen in the workforce - most are surprisingly adept. Most middle-age workers, in fact, often have to turn to the 20-somethings to show them how to do various computer functions.

My god man (or woman), did you read what I wrote? I never said that we think we deserve jobs with egregious starting salaries- just the opposite. We want jobs in the fields in which we've studied rather than completely unrelated fields (such as clothing sales).

The amount of graduate students my age who are underemployed has been growing with no end in sight. I shudder to wonder what led you to have such resentment towards your kids (or grandkids).

My high school didn't teach Mandarin, or any languages aside from Spanish and French (and obviously English). Not having that variety never piqued an interest.

My dad is a statistician. He's a dick, thus I didn't want to become a statistician.

I've written two fiction books and am currently working on a third and fourth while in the process of getting my master's and writing my dissertation.

You somehow assume that every young person is so indentured to video games that we can't do anything else. Tell me, did you ever learn Mandarin? Did you ever earn a PhD in a hard science and develop some groundbreaking new invention? If so, kudos, but if not, you can't hold us up to a lofty standard that you set. Life doesn't work that way.

I spent much of my 20's under-employed, drifting, trying to work out what I could be doing.

I studied some useful stuff but it took years of unpaid work before I hit takeoff in a meaningful career.

Now in my 40's it was persistance that got me there in the end.

I feel the pain and hopelessness of youth and I see it everywhere. I actively mentor as many young people as I can. We are failing our youth otherwise.

Don't let anyone tell you prior generations were any different. Jobs were plentiful in previous times, yet some wasted their youth on TV, playing board games, cards, chess, watching sport, sleeping, going to church etc etc until they got it together.

We all have to cope and we all need time to relax, especially if nothing else is available to do.

The problem is not with entitlement for some youths, though that's certainly an easy sell. I would argue that the problem is a marketed American idealism which, when the youth discover that it is a lie, become jaded, apathetic, and angry. As a result, they are pissed because they've been sold this "entitlement" lie by every institution in the US of A. Not to mention, advertisers build empires on the backs of naive youth who are taught from a very young age that if they do not fit in and have what everyone else has, they are somehow defective and irrelevant. Parents further this notion, though admittedly it's awfully hard to be hated by your child for making them "uncool." Most youth ARE willing to work hard; however, if they find out that they've been busting their behinds in academia only to do the same hard work at the same wage as they would've PRIOR to entering academia, they're going to be pissed with the bait-and-switch. On top of that, if these degrees are so patently recognizable as "useless" why is it that the government continues to subsidize such trash, while people like you sit back and hurl insults at a generation that has been corralled into mass-market indentured servitude? It's easy to judge when it doesn't affect you. Being born pre-1960 doesn't entitle you to judge a generation that faces an entirely different and volatile economic climate and market which your generation HELPED TO BUILD. Another problem is that employers are shallowly trained to accept stats and numbers, which are poor indicators of quality. Makes it even harder for victims of the system to prove to employers that they can perform efficient skilled labor. Add to that the ridiculous cost of a college degree compared to the value it provides, and the $80,000 becomes not an entitled wish but an economic necessity. Give it a rest, Damian. You are part of the problem.

I dropped out of Varsity (Charted Accounting) as I was over the entire system. I now run my own start up.

Whilst your English is better than mine, what your 4 year degree never taught you was LOGIC.

When in history have the majority ever been able to make money as writers, musicians, actors, or Liberal Arts Majors?!

If you are still trying to work it out, the answer is NEVER.
What is it about the 21st Century that has made people forget this?

I greatly value most Liberal Arts Degree's as I know that the education from High School is far from a decent education and one needs to broaden their knowledge base in order to be economically competitive. Some people spend 10's of thousands of dollars going to college, whilst others read books and watch documentaries.

If you want a job that is going to pay you a liveable salary you have to go into the STEM industries, that is where the hiring is taking place. Its like a simple algebraic equation. Unfortunately most kids cant do algebra. God bless America.